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Sunday, October 17, 2010

Slow Cooker Black Bean Soup


Slow Cooker Black Bean Soup ready for serving straight from the Crock-Pot

Remember when I had that revelation about soup at BJ's? I think I was meant to make some soup because this recipe showed up in my Cooking Club magazine.

Slow Cooker Black Bean Soup
from Cooking Club

1 lb. dried black beans, rinsed
6 c hot water
2 onions, chopped
1 large red bell pepper, chopped
4 large garlic cloves, minced
2 tsp minced jalapeño chile, seeded and deveined if desired
2 tsp ground cumin
1 1/2 tsp dried oregano
2 tsp salt, divided
1/4 tsp pepper
1 (28-oz.) can crushed tomatoes in puree
1/2 c finely chopped cilantro plus more for garnish
1 c sour cream or nonfat plain yogurt for serving

Add beans to large saucepan of boiling water; return to a boil.

That white thing in there might be a "bad" bean. I don't know. I didn't bother to pick it out.

As an FYI, I think black bean "juice" might stain.


Reduce heat to medium-low; simmer 10 minutes. Drain; rinse.

Transfer beans to a 5- to 6-quart slow cooker. Stir in hot water, onions, bell pepper, garlic, chile, cumin, oregano, 1 1/2 teaspoons of the salt and pepper.


Cook, covered, on low 8 to 10 5.5 hours or until beans are very tender.

I did 5.5 hours as my Crock-Pot is a nuclear reactor and I wanted this soup for dinner.

Stir in tomatoes; cook 30 minutes.


To thicken the soup, mash some of the beans with potato masher or puree in blender. (I skipped that part).

Stir in cilantro and remaining 1/2 teaspoon salt.


Serve topped with sour cream; garnish with cilantro.

The first bowl of this soup, honestly, didn't thrill me.  The late cilantro addition made the soup very cilantro-flavored.  While I enjoy some cilantro, too much is overkill for me.  And it turns out that a half-cup added right before serving was verging on too much.  I fully anticipate that the cilantro will mellow overnight and the other flavors will come through, so I'm not writing this recipe off.

It's possible that with sour cream the flavors are astounding, the cilantro more mellow, but I didn't do the sour cream part.  While I'm not opposed to sour cream in food such as twice-baked potatoes, I wasn't going to buy some just to scoop into my soup. I'm a fuddy-duddy like that.

That said, the recipe was easy to put together, but really, what slow-cooker recipe isn't? As for time, I did my mise-en-place while the beans were simmering, which was a convenient shortcut. Overall, my time spent working on preparing this vat of soup was about 30 minutes total.

I wish I'd thought to round it out with a simple salad and some fresh, crusty bread!

Cost:
  • beans: $1.69
  • onion: $1.27
  • bell pepper: $0.88
  • garlic: $0.20
  • jalapeño: $0.10
  • crushed tomatoes: $1.29
  • cilantro: $0.15
Total: $5.58. but I'll round it up to $6 to include the spices.  That makes each of 8 servings $0.75, as in 75 cents.

Click for the printable


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